Madame Bovary - Penn State University

FlaubertOnce the man, no doubt bored in his hiding-place, made a On arriving she drank off a large glass of water. She wasslight noise.very pale. She said to him—“Is anyone walking upstairs?” said Charles.“Leon, you will do me a service?”“No,” she replied; “it is a window that has been left open, And, shaking him by both hands that she grasped tightly,and is rattling in the wind.”she addedThe next day, Sunday, she went to Rouen to call on all the “Listen, I want eight thousand francs.”brokers whose names she knew. They were at their countryplacesor on journeys. She was not discouraged; and those “Not yet.”“But you are mad!”whom she did manage to see she asked for money, declaring And thereupon, telling him the story of the distraint, sheshe must have some, and that she would pay it back. Some explained her distress to him; for Charles knew nothing of it;laughed in her face; all refused.her mother-in-law detested her; old Rouault could do nothing;but he, Leon, he would set about finding this indispens-At two o’clock she hurried to Leon, and knocked at thedoor. No one answered. At length he appeared.able sum.“What brings you here?”“How on earth can I?”“Do I disturb you?”“What a coward you are!” she cried.“No; but—” And he admitted that his landlord didn’t like Then he said stupidly, “You are exaggerating the difficulty.his having “women” there.Perhaps, with a thousand crowns or so the fellow could be“I must speak to you,” she went on.stopped.”Then he took down the key, but she stopped him.All the greater reason to try and do something; it was impossiblethat they could not find three thousand francs. Be-“No, no! Down there, in our home!”And they went to their room at the Hotel de Boulogne. sides, Leon, could be security instead of her.253